Packet Pushers - Full Podcast Feed

On today’s episode, we get a reality check on all the hype surrounding AI with guest Phil Gervasi. Phil provides background on Large Language Models (LLMs) and their applications, as well as the current state of AI technology. We also delve into practical use cases for AI in network operations, from AI as an assistant... Read more »

Certifications are a fact of life in a technical career. They can also provide a pathway to help you earn new roles, sharpen your skills, and boost your salary. On today’s Packet Protector we look at security certifications for beginners, experienced professionals, and advanced practitioners. This episode was inspired by a LinkedIn post by Ethan... Read more »

Someone needs to be scanning the horizon for the threats and opportunities that are distant for now–and they need to be able to turn that foresight into action. We welcome John Miranda of Intel for a lively discussion of how to look ahead, how to get folks to pay attention to the alerts you raise,... Read more »

Lots of good stuff in this week’s Network Break. Microsoft announces an 8-qubit quantum chip and declares that practical quantum computing is years, not decades, away. D-Wave says its quantum computers are now commercially available for research facilities, academic institutions, and governments. Apple rolls its own 5G modem into its iPhone 16e. Meta announces its... Read more »

Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) is a framework that developers use to help them manage and integrate frequent code changes. As network automation evolves, should network engineers adopt CI/CD? Guest Tony Bourke joins us to talk about CI/CD pipelines: what they are, how they’re used, and how they can support network automation efforts. We... Read more »

Lead people. Manage machines and processes. That’s the the advice from Bill Hunter, today’s guest on Total Network Operations. Bill shares lessons of resilience and adaptability he learned early in his career, including the power of good habits. Bill and Scott discuss how to identify processes that can be automated and when and where to... Read more »

IPv6 Buzz welcomes back Veronika McKillop, the founder and President of the UK IPv6 Council, to talk about the council’s formation and achievements in the past ten years. We look at IPv6 adoption in the UK and its challenges, and what the future holds for IPv6. Veronika highlights the need for improved IPv6 education in... Read more »

Welcome to part 2 of our spanning tree series. We start with a quick review and then discuss root bridges, root ports, designated ports, and forwarding and blocked ports.  We explain the impact of topology changes on spanning tree and network performance, and discuss how topology changes and convergence events are communicated. Last but not... Read more »

Developer experience is a hard metric to measure qualitatively. On today’s show, we talk with Kristen Foster-Marks about Developer Experience, or DevEx. We start with the controversial concept of “ghost engineering,” which claims many software engineers do not contribute meaningfully to their work. We delve into the validity of this claim, and discuss the scientific... Read more »

There’s a robust malware economy with an active market for exploits, brokered access to compromised systems, ransomware, bots-as-a-service, and more. And this malware economy is targeted at you. On today’s Packet Protector we talk with Jake Williams, a security researcher, consultant, and instructor, about the malware economy, how it operates, and the most effective strategies... Read more »

The Flipper Zero is like a Swiss Army knife for wireless tech enthusiasts. Today’s guest, Jason Beshara, is teaching a course on the Flipper Zero device at WLPC Phoenix 2025. He discusses its functions, including its ability to send and receive a variety of radio signals including Bluetooth, NFC, and sub-gigahertz frequencies. The conversation covers... Read more »

Nokia’s Event-Driven Automation, or EDA, is a network automation platform that aims to help network engineers achieve predictable, error-free operations so you can keep up with all the change tickets coming your way while ensuring the data center is reliable and performant. On today’s Tech Bytes podcast, sponsored by Nokia, we’ll talk about how EDA... Read more »

Take a Network Break! We start with some Red Alert vulnerabilities to get your blood pumping, and then dive into networking news. Cisco announces new data center switches with AMD Pensando DPUs that let you deploy security and other services directly on to the switch. Cisco ThousandEyes is previewing Traffic Insights, which correlates flow records... Read more »

Can AI and automation create a truly autonomous network, one that’s self-diagnosing and self-healing? Join Vitria CTO and Founder Dale Skeen and industry analyst Charlotte Patrick in this sponsored episode of Heavy Strategy to discuss the challenges–and limitations–of using AI to create autonomous networking. This discussion covers the “intelligence architecture” required to implement automation, and ... Read more »

Connecting your branch to your wide area network used to be simple enough. Call your carrier, get a circuit ordered, wait a long time, then turn it up. A little routing, and there you were. Cloud blew that model apart. Now when we connect branches to our corporate networks, we have to consider not only... Read more »

Collaboration among tech and business teams is crucial to advancing your business. Extreme Networks is introducing Extreme Platform ONE to support this collaboration. In this sponsored episode, we talk about how this product is designed to streamline workflows and enhance user experience through automation and AI integration. Extreme Networks Platform ONE is a centralized platform... Read more »

Spanning tree is a topic so mysterious and complicated that common advice is just to disable it. In today’s episode, we start a mini-series on spanning tree, hoping to better explain what it is and what it does. We begin with basic spanning tree terminology and its role in preventing loops in an Ethernet network.... Read more »

Embracing change is sometimes easier said than done. Today we talk with Monika Machado, who has held significant roles at companies like Microsoft and Oracle. She shares her story of learning and personal growth. Monika highlights the value of mentor-mentee relationships, continuous learning, understanding the difference between leadership and management, and the value of owning... Read more »

The Cloud Security Maturity Model (CSMM) is a practical blueprint for improving the security of your public cloud deployments. Developed in partnership with the Cloud Security Alliance, IANS, and Securosis, the model covers 12 categories, such as network security and application security, across 3 domains. It describes 5 levels of security maturity, and includes process... Read more »

AI Large Language Models (LLMs) can be used to generate output that the creators and users of those models didn’t intend; for example, harassment, instructions on how to make a bomb, or facilitating cybercrime. Researchers have created the HarmBench framework to measure how easily an AI can be weaponized. Recently these researchers trumpeted the finding... Read more »